Integral Consciousness as a Follow

The beauty of Integral Consciousness (levels Teal and Turquoise in Integral Principle) is that we realise we’re frequently evolving people in a frequently evolving world. As such, we will consciously take part in our personal progress. We make acutely aware the unconscious strategy of stage growth because it unfolds decade to decade, 12 months to 12 months, week to week, and second to second.

From this angle, Integral Consciousness isn’t an finish, however a way, a apply. And the six practices we have a look at as we speak will help you in your individual consciousness challenge. Over time, these practices will positively alter your modus operandi.

If you happen to’re not sure what Integral Consciousness is, I’ve written about it at size in these articles:

To be clear, Integral Consciousness means the Teal/Yellow/A’N’ stage and the Turqouise/B’O’ stage. I’ll say Integral when referring broadly to each ranges, and be extra particular when want be.

And a warning – I can’t totally outline Integral Consciousness. My interpretation and embodiment could have their very own strengths and weaknesses, their very own vivid spots and blind spots. So I encourage you to take these descriptions considerably loosely and never get caught up within the trivialities. Let your individual expertise information you.

Let’s get to these practices.

Integral Principle Follow 1: See Healthiness and Necessity of All Levels

I typically like to think about Teal and Turquoise as levels that reverse the tide of growth.

Throughout all prior progress, we totally establish with one stage at a time, typically in a close to fanatic method, then ultimately turn out to be conscious of its limitations and transfer past it. At this level we regularly shun or deny it, earlier than totally figuring out with the subsequent stage and turn out to be equally fanatic. At every level within the journey, all different levels appear barbaric, foolish, infantile, blind.

We crawl our method by means of these ranges in a one-dimensional, mono-perspectival method, our imaginative and prescient solely narrowly increasing with every profitable crawl.

However this development is reversed as soon as we hit second tier. We loosen up, we attain again and ahead, and we open our hearts to all earlier levels. We don’t assume we’re the perfect, the very best, the best human expression potential. And we realise we’re the perfect, the worst, the great and the dangerous all wrapped into one.

We realise that every one earlier ranges had been essential constructing blocks within the grand puzzle that’s us – and this goes for tradition too.

We see the deep truths in all of the levels, whether or not it’s Inexperienced’s sensitivity and want for justice, Orange’s rationality and fact-finding, Blue’s dichotomising, literalising and want for belonging, Pink’s anger, energy and wrath, or Purple’s magical enchantment. The extent to which we fail to notice their validity and necessity is the extent to which we fail to embody Integral Consciousness.

At Teal, seeing the levels is an mental endeavour. We attempt to synthesise them in thought. At Turquoise this can be a visceral endeavour. We attempt to synthesise the levels in lived, moment-to-moment embodiment and connection.

Integral Consciousness Practices: In You

The apply entails deeply observing your self as you operate throughout all of those ranges and consciously tapping into every of them, with out judgment, and with ability and discernment. It’s not mere observing. It’s residing, regurgitating, reviving, flexing and flowing.

If you might want to set boundaries and be lion-like, are you able to faucet into all of your wrathful, visceral Pink power? In a fancy scenario, are you able to go to rational evaluation and goal stance? When emotions, togetherness and sensitivity are required, are you able to undertake the Inexperienced self?

Much more, are you able to do that all with a heightened perspective, with a spirit of affection for your self and others, and with out getting contracted round these consciousness buildings as they wax and wane inside you? The chances are as countless because the complexity and nuance of all of the conditions you encounter as a human.

Integral Consciousness Practices: In Others

And you are able to do this with different individuals and the world at massive. Why is that this particular person displaying Pink combativeness? Why does this particular person cling so arduous to Orange rationality, logic and proof?

This not as a closed, condemning “Why?!” however as an open, empathetic, heart-infused “Why?“. All levels have their raison d’etre, as does our obsession with them. Search to deeply perceive them and resonate with them.

In consciously residing and viscerally embodying every of those ranges, you’re downloading the Turquoise self: the self that not solely thinks and sees the degrees which have but emerged in your evolution (which is a Teal capability), however is a beautiful, multidimensional amalgamation of them.

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My expertise: I’ve studied dozens of developmental fashions, together with integral idea, spent years analysing my very own ranges, and check out on daily basis to flex and circulation between them. It’s now fairly obvious which ranges dominate in different individuals, and this opens my coronary heart to them. Certain, I would disagree strongly with their views and methods, however I realise that they’re the place they should be. I don’t attempt to change them. And I all the time ask what items of their world I’m lacking from my very own.

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Integral Follow 2: See The Spectrum of Levels

Jeff Salzman, the person behind the Day by day Evolver podcast, the place he makes use of Integral Principle to analyse present occasions, describes an exquisite apply for connecting to your complete energetic, developmental spectrum within the physique and thoughts. He just lately described it within the context of the Israel–Palestine battle, and we will apply it to any life scenario.

In any scenario, our reactions are all the time introduced by many various ranges within the evolutionary spectrum. Keep in mind that every larger stage, in precept, consists of all earlier views. Listed below are our typical reactions and the degrees they’re primarily based on.

third Tier

The non secular self. Sees every little thing to be no extra and at least the manifestation of spirit.

2nd Tier

• Turquoise: the loving, grandfatherly self. It sees the chaos and churning and loves it as an inevitable a part of life because it evolves and performs out.
• Teal: the developmental–analytical self. It sees the degrees of complexity and growth within the scenario and needs to analyse and determine them out.

1st Tier

• Inexperienced: the sufferer–oppressor self. It needs to proper the wrongs, convey justice, punish the aggressor and assist the sufferer.
• Orange: the rational self. It needs to analyse, dissect, fact-find, assume.
• Amber: the dichotimsing, righteous self. It takes the ethical excessive floor, searches for who’s proper and who’s unsuitable, jumps to conclusions, and seeks to punish wrongdoers.
• Pink: the aggressive self. It reacts with anger and wrath.

You’ll be able to see this in all life conditions, however Jeff’s software of it to political occasions was notably fruitful to me. For a very long time, I used to be frankly confused by present occasions. A part of me was aloof. One other a part of me deeply cared however didn’t know what to do. A part of me didn’t belief reporters to not twist and skew occasions. One other half merely noticed all of it as maya, the suave work of God.

As a substitute of being misplaced in all my conflicting views and reactions, I can now merely witness them as they come up and cross. I don’t have to present any weight to them. I realise they’re all legitimate, but I’m completely freed from them.

The Follow

Do this apply of seeing your reactions to present occasions, life challenges, new conditions, and so forth.

One apply is to witness all of them as they come up collectively, coalesce, struggle with one another, then die off. One other is to give attention to one stage, totally experiencing it inside your self, even expressing it by means of phrases or motion, then letting it go.

Extra highly effective, to my thoughts, is seeing these reactions to your individual circumstances. All of them come up as you navigate the multidimensional, infinite online game of life.

Additionally discover all of them have their signature within the physique. The decrease levels in Integral Principle dwell within the abdomen and intestine, whereas the upper levels dwell within the head and past. Every has their very own emotional resonance: Pink feels offended and energetic, whereas Inexperienced feels gentle, ethereal, heat. Search for all these qualities as you roam up and down your internal spiral.

Integral Principle Follow 3: Zoom Out

Our tendency is to overidealise the previous and catastrophise the long run. We yearn to return to childhood or a previous type of society. We dread change and get fearful about the way forward for humanity.

The issue is that these views are often primarily based on a really slim view of life, each of phrases of time and scope. We predict by way of years, not a long time or centuries. We choose and select what we give consideration to, solely reinforcing our fear-ridden narratives.

But regardless of all our catastrophising, tradition and society proceed to advance. Evolution and alter are constructed into the universe, and a part of our job as the forefront is to consciously embrace and encourage them.

And at Integral Consciousness, the lengthy stretch of time turns into our concern. We glance past the current and our lifespan and see the way it matches into the larger context – that of life unfolding over centuries and millennia.

Integral Consciousness Practices

Right here’s your first apply. Earlier than you leap to judgments about politics, expertise, local weather change and racism, open up your time span. Return to the Massive Bang, when goal actuality didn’t exist. Then assume 1000 years into the long run, when human civilisation could have modified past all recognition. Now return to the current, and see how your present scenario is intertwined with these two distant endpoints. Issues look loads totally different now, proper?

A second apply is to all the time ask how every little thing is working collectively for good, even when it appears horrible on the floor. I consider every little thing has a deep knowledge to it. We would not perceive it, we would hate it, and we would query the knowledge of it. This entails every little thing from AI, to Covid, to Donald Trump’s election for presidency, to World Battle II and The Holocaust. And on a private stage, all our private ups and downs, and life’s seemingly merciless twists of destiny.

All the things finally performs a task within the unfolding of life. We should look past our inbuilt fear- and problem-oriented imaginative and prescient in order that it doesn’t blindside us. We should frequently join with the larger context to see the deeper knowledge behind it. Are you able to see that life is one nice evolving organism?

This doesn’t imply we turn out to be meek or passive or detached. Our earlier ranges are lively, they usually permit us to cope with the right here and now. However doing so with Integral Consciousness equips us with an even bigger coronary heart and higher belief.

Integral Principle Follow 4: Make Distinctions and Complexify

This apply is especially helpful once we’re starting to obtain the upper ranges. Throughout the obtain, we’re prone to nonetheless be dominated by Inexperienced, postmodern pondering, which tends to incessantly categorise and pigeonhole. Anger and battle = dangerous. Emotions and inclusion = good. White males = oppressors. Ladies, blacks, LGBTQ = oppressed. And so forth.

We should turn out to be far more nuanced in our pondering if we wish to embody Integral consciousness. Not one of the sociopolitical points that our Inexperienced self will get uppity about – capitalism, oppression, the darkish facet of human historical past, hierarchies, the patriarchy, LGBTQ – is anyplace close to so simple as that self likes to consider.

Our Inexperienced self additionally tends to muck up your complete developmental spectrum. It errors magical pondering for transpersonal godliness. It places intestine feeling, sensitivity and emotion on the prime of the tree. Anger, rationality and masculinity are out, reserved for devils and godzillas.

But all human qualities may be each wholesome and unhealthy. Although Inexperienced’s sensitivity permits higher inclusion, heat interpersonal contact, and higher contact with our emotional life, it might probably go away us completely paralysed when confronted with directness and combativeness.

Integral Consciousness Practices

You need to embrace and embody sensitivity when vital, but be ready to be decidedly unsensitive if vital. Apply this identical precept to all human qualities, and also you enact Integral Consciousness.

As a apply, complexify your pondering. Take a look at the scenario from views that seem to utterly contradict your individual. Watch how your thoughts likes responsible the identical previous individuals and put others in the identical previous classes. Although the Inexperienced self rallies in opposition to rigidification and guidelines, it falls hook line and sinker for its personal rigidity. And all prior ranges possess one thing of this narrowing, as Integral Principle notes. Attempt to counteract this tendency.

See life as a matrix of ranges of complexity reasonably than an egalitarian soup. Begin to realise that some ranges are merely higher in sure conditions. Realise the profound limitations of all the degrees in Integral Principle, together with your dominant stage.

Naomi Perera says that Teal complexifies whereas Turquoise simplifies. And solely by complexifying past the Inexperienced self can we get near the loving simplicity of Turquoise.

Integral Principle Follow 5: See Your Tendency For Othering

Human consciousness is constructed on one elementary phantasm: the excellence between self and different. That is maybe the defining attribute of our consciousness. We really feel ourselves to be on “this” facet of the physique and the world to be on “that” facet. It’s ever-present, direct, visceral, and it skews every little thing we expect and every little thing we do. We’re consistently othering, othering, othering.

This distinction is baked into virtually all altitudes of growth. Although we want it to efficiently navigate these ranges, I consider that at Teal and Turquoise we ought to start to completely transcend and dissolve the phantasm of self and different. Not solely is that this progress a marker of upper growth, it’s a elementary a part of understanding who you actually are and why you’re right here.

The diploma to which you “different” is the diploma to which you fail to embody all prior ranges.

There’s one other type of othering all of us have interaction in: the behavior of splitting the world into classes. We pigeonhole occasions and folks as being good or dangerous. We divide individuals into these which might be like us and people which might be strangers. We’re extremely tribal, particularly in terms of divisive matters, like politics and faith.

In the long run, we consistently interpret and decide the world in keeping with our personal requirements, and inevitably this creates points.

Integral Consciousness Follow

Although I gained’t declare we will ceaselessly undo this behavior – I believe it’s far too ingrained for many of us – we will see it and begin to discover simply how a lot we filter and categorise.

Are you able to pay attention to your individual views and the way you robotically cling to them? Can you see that these views have a lifetime of their very own as they seem and disappear in your first particular person? Are you able to watch how this creates a dividing line between you and the world, a form of limitation? You don’t see the world, you see YOU.

Training this can aid you drop this tendency and take you additional into multiperspectival Integral Consciousness.

Integral Principle Follow 6: Love Thy Neighbour

Jeff Salzman additionally fantastically outlines a apply that wears down a selected form of othering: our indifference or repulsion in direction of different individuals.

We people are likely to give attention to distinction in all issues, together with fellow people. We primarily pay heed to every little thing that makes them totally different to us, as if consistently scanning for threats.

This apply is about undoing that tendency. Jeff did it within the context of Ted Cruz, utilizing Integral Principle as his framework, and you need to use it on everybody – from people who trigger you gentle aversion to those who make you are feeling bodily sick.

Run this course of:

• attempt to see that they sincerely consider within the rightness of their actions,
• see their numerous traces of growth, noticing the place they’re larger and decrease,
• ponder their household and financial background,
• in the event that they show excessive traits, realise this can be a real incapacity,

Does this imply you don’t have grounds for dislike? No. However it does imply you’ll be able to see the particular person and your self from a higher perspective.

Regardless of how detestable others could also be, they’ve their very own story and causes for his or her methods. Understanding these causes is a mark of empathy, and it greases the rails for Integral Consciousness and actual embodiment of Integral Principle.

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